Spatial-temporal characteristics and influencing factors of agricultural eco-efficiency in China in recent 40 years

Chinese agricultural output has been multiple under the intensive input of production factors since the reform and opening-up. Such a growth pattern that realizes high output through high input results in increasingly prominent environmental pollution problems. Considering the provincial panel data in China during 1978–2017 as the research units and taking agriculture in broad sense as the study object, the agricultural eco-efficiency (AEE) was measured by the Super-SBM Model, and the influencing factors were screened out from agricultural basic condition, agricultural industrial structure, agricultural development potential and agricultural input strength. The findings indicated that agricultural expected output and unexpected output were synchronously increased, while the change of input factors was totally different and gradually transferred to materiality from resources. In 1978–2017, AEE was increased to 0.713 from 0.405, with an increase of about 76%. And it approximately underwent four stages, including free development, reform promotion, market regulation and policy incentives. Under the resource restraint and policy incentives, AEE showed that Northeast, East and South China were higher than the national average level. North and Central China basically fitted for the national average level, and Southwest and Northwest China were lower than the national average level. Also, it was successively present in some spatial characteristics including polarization, differentiation, agglomeration and reconstruction on the provincial scale. The magnitude and direction of influencing factors indicated that the introduction of subsidy policies for compound fertilizers, an increase of farmers’ incomes, optimization of agricultural plantation structure, and maintenance of stable agricultural product prices could effectively improve AEE.     

Evaluating spatial and temporal variation in agricultural output elasticities in Turkey

This study evaluates spatial variation in the relationship between agricultural output and input use across Turkey. The potential impact of the national agricultural policy reform introduced in 2001 on the spatial variation in agricultural output elasticities across the country was explored. By applying a spatial production function to the province‐level data in 2000 and 2007, spatial heterogeneity in the variance of provincial total factor productivity and the input factor‐output elasticities was identified across the country. Results show that the disparities in agricultural activities and geographic conditions affected return from input factors. Empirical findings from a spatial spillover model also suggest that changes in the input factor‐output elasticities varied significantly across Turkey between 2000 and 2007, after the policy reform. Results suggest that future policy reform that recognizes regional comparative advantage through understanding the geographic heterogeneity of the agricultural sector is important for enhancing Turkey's agricultural output.     

农民人均纯收入与农业生产结构的关系研究

基于改革开放以来的宏观数据,运用SVAR模型主要进行脉冲响应分析、方差分析。结果显示,农民人均纯收入与农业生产结构的几个指标之间存在长期稳定的均衡关系,农业(种植业)产值对农民人均纯收入的影响最大,农民人均纯收入对农业生产结构变动的响应具有一定的滞后性。因此,提出转变发展思想,以工业的形式发展农业;推进产业改革,调优农业生产结构;调整产业政策,增添农民人均纯收入增长动力。     

CAP MTR versus environmentally targeted agricultural policy in marginal arable areas: impact analysis combining simulation and survey data

On June 2003 the final version of the Common Agricultural Policy Mid‐Term Review (CAP MTR) was published. The driving forces of this policy change include inter alia the compliance with World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations' requirements, improvement of social support for agricultural policy, adjustment to budget constraints and adaptation of agricultural practices to environmental requirements. This article reviews how this policy performs in marginal areas regarding one of those objectives: the provision of environmental outputs related to agricultural activity. As an alternative to this reform, a policy based on agri‐environmental measures designed to maximize environmental outputs, is proposed. Both options are evaluated from a cost‐effectiveness point of view. Data from a farm survey and a positive mathematical programming model for a cereal steppes agro‐system in Spain are combined in order to simulate the effects of this reform and our alternative instrument on several environmental indicators. Results show that in marginal areas, where land abandonment is a clear threat, more environmental output can be achieved for the same cost, while maintaining, if not increasing, the levels of achievement for the other goals.     

Agriculture’s Inter‐industry Linkages,Aggregation Bias and Rural Policy Reforms

As agricultural policy reform and its effects have become increasingly territorialised, analyses that attempt to explain or predict impacts need to be both more localised and to identify spill‐over effects. Local and regional general equilibrium approaches have become increasingly popular because they can extend predictions of policy shocks obtainable from partial equilibrium sectoral models to identify the wider effects. However, agriculture is usually described as a single sector in input–output accounts, whereas policy shocks that affect constituent commodities with differential impacts will have inter‐industry effects that are different to those implied by average input–output coefficients. Regionalisation of aggregated input–output tables adds further to these difficulties. The objective of this study is to develop a practical method for dealing with these problems. It describes the theoretical basis of aggregation bias and shows how it can be measured, in two contrasting case study regions in the UK and Sweden. Having established that this is a significant issue, a simple but effective procedure is demonstrated, based on additional information on variable costs, which transforms policy shocks from a direct change in agricultural output to that transmitted to the suppliers of inputs. This method provides an impact close to that which could be calculated if the general equilibrium system had indeed been disaggregated, and supports use of this approach in impact studies where insufficient time or funding are available for complete disaggregation of an agricultural sector’s regional accounts.     

A Computable General Equilibrium Analysis of Agricultural Liberalisation: The Uruguay Round and Common Agricultural Policy Reform

This paper uses a computable general equilibrium model to assess the effects of the Uruguay Round (UR) and CAP reform. Detailed attention is given to the impact of the agricultural components of the UR and of the CAP reform on the agricultural and food-processing sectors of the EU. The CGE model used, while based on the standard Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) model, uses a more detailed representation of the UR and CAP policy changes than is usual in GTAP analyses of the UR effects. In so doing it assumes a degree of specificity of factors used in agriculture and makes appropriate agricultural policy variables endogenous. Finally, it assesses the consequences of assuming imperfect competition in all non-agricultural sectors.     

The Evolving Structure of Chinese R&D Funding and its Implications for the Productivity of Agricultural Biotechnology Research

China’s research and development (R&D) policy has changed considerably over recent decades, and great changes occurred in 2006 when the main programme objective of China’s R&D changed from the 863 Programme and 973 Programme to the National Science and Technology Major Project. One topic that has drawn extensive attention is whether the investment reform improved R&D productivity in China. Using a unique panel dataset from 160 universities, this paper examines the effect of the investment reform on productivity improvement in China’s agricultural biotechnology sector. We use a panel count data model with a dynamic feedback mechanism to model the knowledge production process. Strong evidence indicates that the investment reform greatly contributes to knowledge output production in China’s agricultural biotechnology sector. We also find that the input quality is more important than the absolute quantity; human research capacity exhibits the greatest contribution to the output of patents; past knowledge accumulation helps produce more patents; and entry barriers to patent production exist in China’s agricultural biotechnology sector. Moreover, the patent explosion in China may have been largely caused by improvements in the human capital input quality.     

最低收购价政策调整对我国粮食安全的影响以稻谷为例

目的 最低收购价政策实施以来,在稳粮价、促生产、保粮安的同时,也产生了显著的负面影响,探索以市场机制为核心的粮食价格支持政策改革势在必行。方法 文章以稻谷为例,通过构建局部均衡模型,模拟逐渐下调最低收购价、取消最低收购价、取消最低收购价并大幅增加农业补贴等方案对我国稻谷的产量、总消费、库存和净进口等方面的影响,进而探究最低收购价政策调整对我国粮食安全的影响。结果 （1）下调稻谷最低收购价,对稻谷市场价格、总产量和总消费的影响较小,而对库存和净进口量的影响较大;（2）取消最低收购价,虽然能大幅度减小国内外差价、库存量和进口量,但短期内也会显著减少稻谷产量,对我国的粮食供给安全带来了巨大冲击;（3）取消稻谷最低收购价,并大幅度提高了农业补贴后,稻谷总产量下降水平明显减少,既解决了托市收购带来的负面影响,也降低了取消托市收购对粮食供给安全的冲击。结论 最低收购价政策的支持效应显著,为充分保障国内粮食安全,在推行粮食市场化改革时,应首先考虑小幅度下调最低收购价,而不是一次性取消最低收购价政策;同时,要配套相应的补贴政策,优化农业补贴结构,来保障粮农的种植积极性。     

State Trading and China's Agricultural Import Policies

WTO rules on state trading operating through provisions on state trading (Article XVII) and on tariff bindings (Article II) discipline import protection in line with countries' tariff bindings as long as sufficient information is available to monitor the behavior of state trading enterprises. China's economic reforms have left state trading a minor part of its trade regime overall, although it applies to trade in important agricultural commodities, and oil. China's commitments in its WTO accession package will make policy much more transparent and allow China to develop a highly efficient agricultural sector. This policy stance also highlights the pressing need for improved policies to counter rural poverty.     

The trade and environment nexus in Mexican agriculture. A general equilibrium analysis

This paper analyzes linkages between growth, trade and the environment in Mexican agriculture with an empirical economy-wide model. The investigation considers trade liberalization, environmental policy reform, and their coordination. The analysis decomposes the change in pollution emission induced by changes in the sectoral composition of production, effects of technology on emission intensity, and aggregate Scale effects. Outward orientation alone induces a contraction of aggregate agricultural output, but promotes growth and pollution in some agricultural sectors. Overall, free trade does not induce wholesale specialization in dirty agricultural activities. Environmental taxes on pollution emitted in agricultural sectors have a moderate negative impact on agricultural output, except for the tax on water-borne toxic chemicals. More liberal trade combined with targeted effluent taxes can achieve significant environmental mitigation and efficiency gains, but with the implication of a contraction of most agricultural sectors.     

The impact of the 1999 CAP reforms on the efficiency of the COP sector in Spain

The cereal, oilseeds, and protein crop sector (COP) occupies a prominent position within the European Union's agricultural sector. Within Spain, the COP sector accounts for almost a third of total Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund expenses, and half of the utilized agricultural area (UAA). The COP sector is not only relevant because of its physical and economic magnitude, but also because of the political attention it receives. The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reforms that occurred during the 1990s paid special attention to this sector. This article aims to determine the impacts of Agenda 2000 on a sample of Spanish COP farmers' production decisions by using an output-oriented stochastic distance function. The distance function allows for an assessment of the reform-motivated changes on total output, input used, input composition, and crop mix. It also permits an assessment of the impacts of the reform on farms' technical efficiency.
Results show that the reform has shifted the production frontier inward and changed output composition in favor of voluntary set-aside land. With respect to input composition, Agenda 2000 induced a decrease in land, fertilizers, pesticides, and other inputs in favor of labor. In addition, Agenda 2000 has had a negative impact on technical efficiency.     

The effect of barge and ocean freight price volatility in international grain markets

Short‐run responses of export and domestic shares of total agricultural output to changes in stocks of domestic savings (SAV), development assistance (ODA), private foreign commercial capital (PFX) and other variables is investigated. A profit function approach is used. Time series data for 19 sub‐Saharan African countries are pooled into three panels using similarities in changes in economic policy regime. Statistical evidence suggests that for the panel of countries that were undertaking liberalized economic reforms, the slope coefficients of some of the variables in the models have changed significantly between 1970–1980 and 1981–1993. For the 1981–1993 period, the impacts of ODA, PFX and SAV on export and domestic shares were different for this panel. The effect of increases in agricultural labor was different across the three panels. There is also evidence that productivity growth in the export agriculture sub‐sector is negative in all the groups. It is recommended that to halt the decline in export share of agricultural output in the group of countries that have undertaken substantial improvements in economic policy environment, efforts must be made to reduce the negative impact of domestic savings and agricultural labor, while at the same time working to reduce the bias of development assistance against food security.     

Trade and agricultural development in the 1980s and the challenges for the 1990s: Asia

Asian developing countries have had varying experiences in trade and agricultural development in the 1980s, attributable in part to their differing stages of economic development and structural characteristics. Other important influences relate to the external economic environment and the policy choices made by their governments not only during the period but also in the preceding decade. The achievements of Asian developing countries under the adverse external conditions of the 1980s are discussed in terms of their macrocconomic and agricultural growth, the commodity structure of agricultural growth, their food production and trade, the expansion and diversification of their agricultural exports, and the policy and nonpolicy factors affecting them. Special attention is given to the role of policy reforms implemented in China and the South Asian countries, following similar policy developments in Northeast and Southeast Asia in the 1960s and 1970s, toward greater openness in their trade regime and increased private-sector participation in the economy. These reforms have contributed to the observed acceleration in gup , agricultural, and export growth in the 1980s. However, macroeconomic imbalances have emerged that threaten the sustainability of economic liberalization in those countries. The major challenges for the 1990s also differ among the Asian developing countries. In the industrially advanced Northeast economies of Taiwan and South Korea, the primary need is to ease the transition of the remaining rural population as farm incomes continue to fall and workers move to industrial and service activities. This challenge has to be addressed in the context of growing external pressure to further open their domestic market for agricultural imports. Among the Southeast and South Asian countries, there is a need to reduce the existing policy biases against agriculture, particularly against export crop production. Moreover, China and the South Asian countries face the additional challenges of continuing to deregulate their trade regime and internal markets, and of promoting macroeconomic stability. Despite the external trend recently toward regionalism, Asian developing countries generally seem committed to an open trading system, on which in fact their past impressive economic performance has been predicated. An important challenge for them in the 1990s is to play an active role in arresting and reversing any protectionist tendencies arising from the formation of regional trading blocs and to support multilateral initiatives such as the Uruguay Round that promote global trade liberalization.     

农业水价改革绩效的熵权模糊综合评价

随着农业水价改革在全国范围内不断地试点展开,客观上要求建立有效、合理并且实用的农业水价改革绩效评价体系和评价方法,以便科学、客观地反映改革试点的农业水价改革的成效与不足,为进一步推动改革的发展提供参考。为此,构建了农业水价改革的绩效评价体系,并提出一种熵权模糊综合评价模型。模型运用熵权法确定评价指标的权重向量,并运用模糊综合评价方法将农业水价改革绩效中的模糊性、复杂性以及不确定性进行综合量化,得出评价结果。将模型运用于实例中的湖南省农业水价改革试点的绩效评价,结果表明:该模型是合理可行的,能较为全面客观地反映农业水价改革试点的成效与不足,在实践中具有一定的应用价值。     

Chinese Land Reform in Long-Run Perspective and in the Wider East Asian Context

The claims made by Griffin et al. for the impact of land reform in China are unconvincing. The land reform of 1947–52 did not lead to a pronounced increase in agricultural output. Nor was it egalitarian; indeed, but for the deliberate preservation of the rich peasant economy, growth might have been non-existent. The second land reform of 1981–3 was equally ineffectual. Agricultural growth had shifted on to a faster growth path before decol-lectivization, and the surge of 1980–4 was little more than a temporary response to decent weather, procurement price rises, the abandonment of the Dazhai system and a reduction in output under-reporting. Rural income inequality has been held in check since 1984 because of local government intervention, not because family farming is intrinsically egalitarian. China's experience of land reform is mirrored by those of other East Asian countries. A century of land reform has not resolved Japan's deep-seated agricultural problems, nor those of Taiwan and South Korea.     

安徽省农地流转绩效差异分析

[目的]正确认识安徽省农地流转工作成果,剖析不同地区农地流转绩效差异,探讨有效提高农地流转绩效措施,对改革和完善农地政策具有重大现实意义。[方法]文章利用安徽省皖北、江淮和皖南3个区域农地流转情况调查数据和其他相关资料,运用层次分析法和模糊评价法构建农地流转绩效评价体系,综合分析农地流转绩效区域差异表现及原因。[结果]研究表明:(1)3个区域的农地流转绩效主要与区域内农村社会发展是否得到重视、农户家庭是否全面发展和流转工作是否落实有关,三者形成的合力最终导致综合绩效的差异;(2)农地流转绩效的提升是一项受多重因素影响的系统性工作,包括政策方针、经济发展和社会保障等方面。[结论]研究认为安徽省农地流转工作成果值得肯定,为进一步完善相关工作,建议综合协调各方资源,借鉴成功工作经验,大力发展地区经济、推广土地整治工作、加强农地经营权交易市场和社会保障体系建设。     

Is the agricultural industry spared from the influence of the Australian carbon tax?

The Australian agricultural sector provides food security for the nation and affects the livelihood of farmers and the development of rural communities. This sector has been uneasy about the Australian carbon tax scheme introduced in July 2012 although the government has exempted the agricultural sector from the scheme. By employing a computable general equilibrium model and an environmentally extended Social Accounting Matrix, this article simulates the effects of different carbon tax policy scenarios. The modeling results show that all agricultural sectors will be affected negatively but to differing degrees. The household compensation policy will improve the performance of the poultry and fishing sectors, while having opposite effects in the other agricultural sectors. The inclusion of the agricultural industry into the carbon tax scheme will lead to a considerable further decrease in output, employment and profitability in the agricultural sector, and a significant further reduction in real GDP, but a much larger emission reduction.     

Agriculture's 'multifunctionality' and the WTO

Are the agricultural policy reforms embodied in the Uruguay Round consistent with meeting domestic policy objectives such as providing adequate food security, environmental protection and viability of rural areas? This article examines the claim that agriculture deserves more price support and import protection than other sectors because of the non‐marketed externalities and public goods it produces jointly with marketable food and fibre (agriculture’s so‐called ‘multifunctionality’). Do these unrewarded positive externalities exceed the negative externalities from farming by more than the net positive externalities produced by other sectors? To what extent are those farmer‐produced spillovers under‐supplied, and what are the most efficient ways to boost their production to the socially optimal levels? The article concludes that there is little trade‐off required to meet domestic policy objectives on the one hand and agricultural protection reform objectives as embodied in WTO rules on the other.     

Trade and agricultural development in the 1980s and the challenges for the 1990s: Latin America

Trends in agricultural trade for South and Central America are documented and the reform process is discussed. Performance of the agricultural sector of the region is evaluated. Challenges for policy makers are reviewed, ranging from macroeconomic policy to science and technology.     

The Vanishing Free Market: The Formation and Spread of the British and US Food Regimes

In this paper, I compare the formation of food regimes during British and US hegemony, which were mirror-images in terms of the degree of free trade and state regulation as well as the direction of trade flow of grains. Many scholars recognize that the foundation for each regime was laid by the national policy and dominant political coalition in the world-economic hegemon, but my analysis pays particular attention to the divisions and coalitions within agriculture as forces that drove the shape of each regime. Though important agricultural divisions existed in each case, the political power of the resulting agricultural coalitions – and those coalitions' relations to the nation's dominant coalition – are central to understanding the formation and spread of each food regime.